And he accused Labour of failing to recognise the "new mood" in the city.

He is now planning to leave three seats in the cabinet vacant for a week in case Labour councillors want to defy their party chiefs and join.

Mr Ferguson had wanted to form a rainbow cabinet, drawing on councillors from each of the three main political parties.

But following Labour's U-turn he will have to rethink his plans.

Labour leader Mr Hammond called Mr Ferguson yesterday following an announcement by the Labour Party's South West regional office confirming the party's councillors would not be involved in the cabinet.

Earlier he had approached Labour's Councillor Helen Holland to act as his deputy.

She declined citing personal reasons.

As well as Ms Holland the new Mayor had wanted Councillor Mark Bradshaw to serve as transport executive and one other Labour councillor to join the cabinet.

Mr Ferguson said he was disappointed with Labour's decision.

It came as he was "in ongoing discussions with Labour councillors about them forming part of his cabinet".

He said: "It's disappointing and I will let the people of Bristol judge whether it was the right thing to do or not.

"It is a failure to recognise the new mood and it's a failure to respond positively to the clear election result.

"I have been having positive discussions and expected a response to what is a new form of politics for Bristol.

"I expected to deal with this at a local level and not nationally. It should be resolved within Bristol and I will still be asking the Bristol Labour councillors to respond to that mood."

On Twitter last night, Mr Ferguson said he would leave three places empty on his cabinet for a week for Labour councillors prepared to 'defy Labour Party diktat'.

Mr Ferguson said he understood why Ms Holland, who represents Whitchurch Park ward, had turned down his invitation to become deputy mayor.

He said: "She was appreciative that I had asked her. She has very good family reasons why she couldn't do it. She's a leading figure on the council and has the experience of representing the city outside the council, which is what I need from a deputy.

"But I'm clear in my mind of a couple of alternatives."

The discussion between Mr Ferguson and Ms Holland largely took place in public, during a series of tweets online through the weekend – the first Ms Holland had heard of the job offer was when the new mayor mentioned his intentions during a local radio interview.

Mr Ferguson said he was hoping to form the first cabinet in the country to include members from all leading political parties by early this week.

He said the new cabinet members would serve until the election in May, when a cabinet would be formed for a three-year term.

A South West Labour Party spokesman said the decision had been taken after "further careful consideration" and listening to a wide range of views across Bristol, and the wider Labour Party.

He said: "We will support the mayor when we agree with his decisions, and we want to be free to offer constructive alternatives when we believe a better solution is available.

"We will continue as a Labour Party to work with the local communities we represent, and to do our best for the people of Bristol."

Labour MP for Bristol South Dawn Primarolo backed the call and said cross-party working could still be effective without Labour holding cabinet positions.

She said: "I believe this decision is entirely correct. Disappointing as it was, Labour did not win the election on November 15.

"The people of Bristol will expect the mayor to be able to get on with his job and be accountable for his decisions. Cross-party working with the mayor, as important as that will be, is not dependent on holding cabinet places.

"As we said in our campaign our first priority has to be to encourage those who don't feel they have a voice to become more actively involved in their local communities, to make themselves heard, and to shape and influence the decisions which affect their everyday lives."

On her decision to turn down the chance to become deputy mayor, Ms Holland said: "I had to do some serious consideration as quickly as possible to give George as long as possible to work his team out.

"Largely it's down to personal circumstances that I wouldn't have been able to accept it. My commitment to Bristol will carry on and I still have my ward responsibilities."

Comments

@Brizz_Tony - "We need someone with that view in the cabinet, to put away Bust Rabid Transit,"
Be careful Brizz_Tony....
Remember Mark Bradshaw is a politician, so will say different things, to different people at different times, for different reasons.
https://twitter.com/mark_bradshaw/status/263389162357522432
It wasn't long ago (20 days) that Mark Bradshaw was inferring we would lose the money should we chose not to continue with BRT. It was also his baby back in the days when he was in charge of transport, he actually came up with the stupid idea!!!!!!
Hopefully GF can be successful where the First Bus Puppet Group of Kent/Hopkins/Rogers failed in convincing central Gov to change to something that:
1. Would have an impact on reducing congestion
2. Not destroy local communities
3. Bristolians as a whole ACTUALLY want
But, I'm a long was from trusting Mark Bradshaw.

I have respect for Mark Bradshaw. Having seen his letter declining George Ferguson's offer of the Transport brief, I can see he came as close as honour would allow to accepting, but decided to stand by the Labour party. I don't agree, but I understand.
My favourite bit of the letter is:
"My view is that BRT (especially BRT2) is now a lame duck project with virtually zero public credibility"
We need someone with that view in the cabinet, to put away Bust Rabid Transit, and especially the stupid £50 million BRT2 route. Mark would have done a good job. The only bit of that statement I disagree with is the word "virtually".

EsMillion
I think you are confusing me with someone who is defending the Labour party.
Hardly.I remember when they lost their overall majority in Bristol in 2003 and refused to work with the Lib Dems and tories in an all party administration.
The irony of it is that after several weeks it was their national party who instructed them to join in. Unfortunately they did not do so willingly and eventually managed to tear the 3 party administration apart.
It is not though for me or my party to comment on the Mayor's negotiations with Labour about the present cabinet.
The Lib Dems ,like the Greens and the Tories, have been offered 1 place in the cabinet and have accepted.

The whole argument that Labour are staying out of it because they don't want what has happened to the Liberal Democrats is totally unfounded. Firstly Liberals support coalition governments, that's why they wanted AV. The reason why things are going so bad for them is because they made promises that they couldn't keep, they were never likely to be in power so they could go for the popular vote, but it's gone badly for them. But instead of fighting for things like lower taxes, being tough on the banks and being strong in Europe, they have chose to focus on Lords reforms, changing the voting system and other things aim at helping them get to power more easily as a coalition partner.
On the other hand Labour have made no unrealistic promises they are already in power locally and have been for some time, cuts have already been made and others will follow so it will be business as usual. I think Labour will come of worse being on the outside - they are not in a position to be a protest party, they will continue to be elected to represent the people so weakening their voice makes little sense. There really is no comparison between a rainbow cabinet here in Bristol and whats going on in London.

Gary _Hopkins, really?, if the pathetic Bristol labour party hadn't thrown their toys out of the pram, they would be having more of a say in how that budget is being spent. This just another labour U turn amongst a catalogue of other U turns that do not as usual favour Bristolians only political ambition and party politics and they were not elected for that.
Decisions like this will remind a lot of the electorate of the Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock days when labour became completely unelectable.
Firstly hopefully some labour councillors will have the guts to defy the party line and secondly let's hope come the May elections the Bristol voters will show the Bristol labour party just how useless and small minded they have become, me I am not holding my breath on either.
But hey nice bit of desperate spin.

Labour cllrs serving Bristol have allowed faceless and un-elected party members to dictate how they will act as cllrs. This is insulting to local people who voted for these cllrs in their ward areas and it basically makes Labour cllrs serving in Bristol in to completely spineless children who are being told what to say and how to act.
Labour were convinced that Marvin Rees had Bristol in the bag and they become complacent, arrogant and smarmy. Now they find themselves unable to cope with the result and the local party is disintegrating from the core.
The elected cllrs find themsleves in dismay while their faceless bureaucrats at the core of the machine chew with their mouths open on salted pork

I do not think it is necessary for us to be commenting upon the Labour party which is the main subject of this story.
People can make up their own minds.
What is though of concern is the council budget.
A balanced budget that needs to produce a reduction in spending of around £25M -£30M has to be produced pretty quickly.
This is the job that also had to be done and was over the last 2 years but of course it was not simple.
A long process of testing and examination was gone through before a budget was brought forward for consultation.Some changes ,although not large in monetary terms happened after that.
The scale of the task was flagged up very early before the election and all mayor candidates were offered access to finance officers and budgetary information to allow them to plan.
Agreement was given at the recent council to a shorter than previous consultation period to give the new administration a little more time to sort out the plans but that time is not unlimmited.
The mayor has more power on the budget than the leader of council had but clearly there is going to be considerable interest in how this difficult but not impossible task is tackled.